Sangamon River

“ March 5, 1830, we find John Overstreet appearing before the County Commissioners' Court at Springfield and averring upon oath "that he is informed and believes that John Cameron and James Rutledge have erected a mill-dam on the Sangamon River which obstructs the navigation of said river;" and the Commissioners issued a notice to Cameron and Rutledge to alter the dam so as to restore the "safe navigation" of the river. James M. Rutledge, of Petersburg, a nephew of the mill-owner, helped build the mill, and says of it: "The mill was a frame structure, and was solidly built. ”

“ It falls, our captain says, one and a half inches a day, and has fallen eight feet since June. It will arise in the autumn, and when its present channel is full overflows the bottom land to the bluffs. This makes the river shore, unless very elevated, rather unhealthy, and consequently uninhabited. Soon after passing the Sangamon, we stopped to take in wood, and we embraced the opportunity to take a sunset stroll in the forest. A small cottage embowered among woodpiles, inhabited by a woodman and his family, were the only signs of human life we saw. ”

“ The Sangamon bottom has a soil of amazing fertility, and rears from its deep, black mould a forest of enormous sycamores; huge, overgrown, unshapely masses, their venerable limbs streaming with moss. When the traveller enters the depths of these dark old woods, a cold chill runs over his frame, and he feels as if he were entering the sepulchre. A cheerless twilight reigns for ever through them: the atmosphere he inhales has an earthly smell, and is filled with floating greenish exhalations ”

“ On the crest of one of the highest and most prominent points of the Sangamon bluffs, jutting out from the range into the valley, a promontory, conspicuous for many miles in all directions, was one of the common oval swellings of the surface, usually known here as an "Indian grave," but so overgrown with bushes and weeds and tall grass as to have required close inspection to distinguish it from the natural contour of the hill. The owner of the land, having occasion to build a pasture-fence over this point, set a laborer to digging holes for the fence-posts ”

“ Soon, however, the wind ceased to blow, the thunder to roar, and the lightning to flash; and, in less than one hour after its commencement the storm had subsided, and that portion of the Saguenay was glowing beneath the crimson rays of the setting sun.
From what I have written, my reader may be impressed with the idea that this river is incapable of yielding pleasurable sensations. Sail along its shores, on a pleasant day, when its cliffs are partly hidden in shadow, and covered with a gauze-like atmosphere, and they will fill your heart with images of beauty. ”

“ Upon the banks of Snake River, when it does not overflow, there is a lengthy, narrow strip of good soil, varying from a quarter of a mile to ten rods wide, and in some places not six inches wide. It is a sterile, barren, desert country, filled with belts of rock and sand. As we passed over some portions of Shanghi Plain, the brethren undertook to remove the stones, so that we might drive our waggons with a little more ease to ourselves and less danger to our vehicles. ”

“ Thus in the valley of the Tsangpo a continuous displacement of solid matter from west to east is going on. It is not alone that the river excavates the bed with its own weight, and loads its water with masses of mud; but also the material deposited at the banks is borne away by the wind which comes to the help of the water. Wind and flowing water work together in harmony to the same end, washing out this gigantic drainage channel deeper and deeper. They have laboured at the work for untold thousands of years, and the result is the Tsangpo valley as we see it to-day. ”

“ At a word from the capita one of the paddlers jumps into the rushing water, rescues the pole and lands safely with it on the bank, fifty or sixty yards below. All the Sangos swim like salmon but cannot of course leap up rapids. They however, swim so powerfully that they steer clear of the rocks and reach the side even in the swiftest current. On we go slowly struggling up rapid after rapid and when it is impossible to paddle and pole the canoes against the stream the crew stand on the rocks and lift them up. ”

“ That portion of the Saguenay extending from Grand Bay to the St. Lawrence, a distance of sixty miles, is greatly distinguished for its wild and picturesque scenery. I know not that I can better pourtray to my reader’s mind the peculiarity of this river than by the following method: imagine for a moment an extensive country of rocky and thinly-clad mountains, suddenly separated by some convulsion of Nature so as to form an almost bottomless chasm, varying from one to two miles in width ”

“ Lawrence, we cannot fail to be impressed by some of the amazing features of the Saguenay River. By actual soundings many parts of the river are over one thousand feet in depth, and none are less than one hundred feet. In places it is as deep five feet from the shore as in the middle of the channel. To boat or canoe on such waters and in the midst of such majestic and sublime surroundings is the one thrilling experience of a lifetime. The stoutest heart must pay involuntary homage to nature when gliding beneath boldly over-hanging masses of rock that must weigh millions of tons. ”

“ The beautiful valley, most inaptly called, of the Mauvaisterre, was then an unbroken wilderness.
The grass was growing as high as the head of a tall man, where now well-built streets and public squares are traversed by hurrying crowds. Groves which have since become classic were then impenetrable thickets; and the only guides the emigrant found, through forest and prairie, were the points of the compass, and the courses [Pg 192] of streams. But in the years eighteen hundred and seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen, the western slope of the Sangamon country began rapidly to improve. ”

“ After the Tugalo makes its junction with the Seneca, the stream takes the name of Savannah, or as the mountaineers call it—the Sav-a-naw. Below the mouth of the Seneca, the river rapidly widens, and the water assumes a yellowish or muddy color, and it is full of wild and dangerous shoals. The bottoms, on either side, are wide and well cultivated; but on account of the fearful freshets, caused by the rising of the mountain streams [344] above, there are no houses built near the river—they generally being from two to three miles back, and sometimes even farther than that ”

“ Emptying into the Scaroon River, just below the lake, is a superb mountain stream, known as Trout Brook. It is thirty feet wide, twelve miles long, and comes rushing down the mountains, forming a thousand waterfalls and pools, and filling its narrow valley with an everlasting roar of music. Not only is it distinguished for the quality and number of its trout, but it possesses one attraction which will pay the tourist for the weary tramp he must undergo to explore its remote recesses. ”

“ The most common contrivance in these hill-districts, when the stream is sufficiently narrow to admit of its employment, is the sangha, the rudest bridge imaginable. No one being at the trouble to repair a work which is not at any time very secure, these sanghas are usually in an exceedingly crazy and precarious condition, and side-rails being deemed superfluous, the narrow footway, only sufficient to admit of the passage of one traveller at a time, forms a method of crossing a torrent neither very easy nor very agreeable. ”

“ Hard by is an insignificant stream, known as the Sanguèze, and which evidently owes its name, like the Italian Sanguinetto that flows into the Lake of Thrasymene, to the blood of battle that is recorded to have once dyed its waters. ”

“ No great rise of the river is required to submerge the whole valley; a rise of ten feet above the present low-water mark would reach the highest point it ever attains, as seen in the markings of the bank on which stood Santuru's ancient capital, and two or three feet more would deluge all the villages. This never happens, though the water sometimes comes so near the foundations of the huts that the people can not move outside the walls of reeds which encircle their villages. When the river is compressed among the high rocky banks near Gonye, it rises sixty feet. ”

“ In course of time also, canals, were it only a few yards in length, might be formed for the purpose of connecting the stream by a more direct channel, instead of compelling ascending vessels to navigate the continued sinuosities of the river throughout its entire course.
Swan Hill, a green oasis rising amidst what is, apparently, a desert of reeds, is a valuable station, containing some excellent pasture. Indeed, from these very reeds, which are annually burnt, springs up a “second growth,” affording admirable food for cattle ”

“ Settlements favoured the East sides of the estuaries because the West sides have mangrove forest and the Atlantic coast is too windy.
The Sangana and other Akassa people have always been fishermen as opposed to farmers or even hunters. ”

“ The next afternoon, being tired of this sort of prison-life, and cramped for lack of exercise, I launched the canoe into the rough water, and crossing to Crow Island found a lee under its shores, which permitted me to ascend the river to the mouth of Atchison Creek, through which I passed, two miles, to the South Santee River.
All these rivers are bordered by rice plantations, many of them having been abandoned to the care of the freedmen. I saw no white men upon them. Buildings and dikes are falling into ruins, and the river freshets frequently inundate the land. ”

“ Nearly all the tributaries of the two big rivers flow from the snow banks and the canons of the Blue Mountains. Though conveying in the aggregate during the flood season an immense volume, the tributaries are too swift for navigation. They supply abundant water for irrigation where needed, and each is a superb trout stream. The largest, the Grande Ronde, is in truth an Oregon river, for its main supplies come from the Grande Ronde and Wallowa valleys, but it crosses the corner of Asotin County and enters Snake River within that scenic country. ”

“ Many of the ships alluded to ascend the Saguenay to obtain lumber, as far as Chicoutimi; and it struck me as singularly paradoxical to see ships winding up that river, whose legitimate home would seem to be the broad ocean. The current of the Saguenay flows in some places at the rate of seven miles per hour; but when there is any wind at all, it blows heavily directly from the north or south, so that, with the assistance of the tide, the upward-bound ships or brigs, manage to get along without much difficulty. ”

“ The principal business done on the river is the driving of logs and timber for the market of St. John; and excepting the worthy and hard-working lumbermen who toil in the forests, the people are devoted to the tilling of their land, and are precisely similar to the Acadians in their manners and customs, and probably from the same stock. There is a miniature steamboat on the river, but as the unnumbered canoes of the inhabitants are engaged in a kind of opposition line, the fiery little craft would seem to have a hard time. ”

“ It contains numerous temples and monasteries, with also a considerable industrial population. Cultivation occupies a great part of the valley, and extends up the course of the stream to a considerable distance. The level tract along the river has in many places a breadth of nearly a quarter of a mile, and the town occupies a ridge on the mountain side, to which a gently-sloping road leads from the bridge by which we crossed the Ruskalan.
The elevation of Sungnam above the level of the sea is 9000 feet. ”

“ This is not a little pocket wilderness like the Adirondacks, but something vast and primitive. You do not cross it, from one railroad to another, by a line of hotels. You go into it by one river as far as you like, or dare; and then you turn and come back again by another river, making haste to get out before your provisions are exhausted. The lake itself is the cradle of the mighty Saguenay: an inland sea, thirty miles across and nearly round, lying in the broad limestone basin north of the Laurentian Mountains. The southern and eastern shores have been settled for twenty or thirty years ”

“ The only curiosity in the place is a rude Catholic church, which is said to have been built by Jesuit missionaries upwards of one hundred years ago. It occupies the centre of a grassy lawn, surrounded with shrubbery, backed by a cluster of wood-crowned hills, and commands a fine prospect, not only of the Saguenay, but also of a spacious bay, into which there empties a noble mountain stream, now known as Chicoutimi River. ”

“ Indian River ran like a mill-sluice, and the current, strong at all times, became so turbulent and powerful, and its surface was so thickly covered with driftwood and trees that had been floated out of the lowlands, that canoe voyaging was not only difficult but dangerous as well. On one occasion I barely escaped being stove all to pieces. This frightened the squatter so that he gave up traveling by night, and took to the water only when he could see where he was going and what obstacles he had to encounter. ”